


Damaged

by Valmouth



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Protectiveness, Rape/Non-con References, Running, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months since Gordon was taken. Four months since Gotham’s authorities received the ransom demand. Four months since the combined forces of the police, the FBI, and Red Robin have failed.</p><p>His return to Gotham is violent and vengeful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Implicit reference to kidnapping, male rape, and bondage.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these characters, or to the movie, universe, source material etc they derive from. I mean no offence by posting this and certainly make no money from it.

When he leaves, he doesn’t intend to come back.

He’s paid his dues, saved the day, left his legacy. He’s named his successor. He leaves under the certain knowledge that he has given the last of his fight to the city.

He isn’t wrong – he doesn’t come back for Gotham; he comes back for Jim. He just wasn’t planning to.

It starts as an abduction. Gotham’s Police Commissioner gets kidnapped. It’s concerning but the city has a new vigilante, good at detective work, and he doesn’t worry.

Two weeks later, City Hall receives a ransom demand. They don’t release the details to the press, but they assure the public that the negotiations look promising.

This is when he starts to worry. He remembers Jim in a hospital bed, surrounded by machines. Small and fragile. Easily wounded, easily killed.

But it’s not his job. His excuse is that it isn’t his job.

And then they air the footage.

“God,” Selina breathes.

He says nothing. Just watches with the rest of the world while Gotham’s Hero Cop is beaten to a bloody pulp.

There’s a kind of stunned silence for twenty-four hours and then every media outlet explodes. And once again, Gotham is in the spotlight.

But there seems to be order in the chaos this time. Montoya issues a level statement asking for information and calm on behalf of the GPD before City Hall steps in to handle all publicity. The Red Robin is sighted. The FBI is brought in. There are daily reports of leads, raids, new information.

His eyes narrow as time circles around the clock face.

The second video shows Gordon’s face. Pale, thin, haggard. No glasses, no moustache, collared and leashed like a dog.

This time they present their demands to the world: “We want our money.”

 He is unbelievably angry.

“Don’t,” Selina says. Warns.

He goes anyway.

Four months since Gordon was taken. Four months since Gotham’s authorities received the ransom demand. Four months since the combined forces of the police, the FBI, and Red Robin have failed.

His return to Gotham is violent and vengeful.

The City descends into hysterics at the sight of the Batman and he doesn’t care. He wants the fear. Fear gets results, and it’s been four months of no answers.

“I’ll deal with it,” he tells Blake, voice dismissive.

There is no hiding this anger. No one knows if Gordon is still alive.

But he is. The third video is aired at the height of the public storm. It arrives at the MCU with a strip of filthy rag. The blood stain is easily identifiable.

He is informed of the item by Gordon’s loyal MCU officers, all of them clustered like lost sheep around the signal.

They all know what the dried streak of off-white fluid is, too.

He closes his gloved fist over the cloth.

“That’s evidence,” Bullock says.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t speak in the time he’s up there. And once he’s heard what they have to say, he turns his back and walks away.

“Hey!” Montoya shouts, “Stop.”

He doesn’t. He leaps off the edge instead and soars back into the night.

It takes him five days.

His knee is in agony but Gordon is alive. And he knows where he is.

The Red Robin follows him down to the sewers and the Batman ignores the shadow that appears behind him except to say, “Get Gordon out alive.”

Blake says nothing.

There is no such thing as an elegant fight. There is bloodshed, and pain, and the sound of fists hitting flesh; the occasional burst of gunfire. There is no swelling, inspirational musical score. There is only the intent to finish it.

Batman is very good at finishing fights.

He doesn’t kill but he does injure, and he knows, as Bane knew, that some injuries are worse than death.

Red Robin does his part. Gordon is lucid, his eyes are open and he’s responsive.

Batman finds the two in Gordon’s cell, door swung open, and Red Robin fumbling with the collar.

“Leave it,” Batman rasps.

There’s a twitch of thin facial muscle, a frowning, blinking, weak focus on the figure looming in the doorway.

The Batman is possessive. He’s here for Gordon. Red Robin is a secondary concern. The burden of Gordon’s body is, in essence, Gordon’s, but in the event that Gordon cannot carry himself, the Batman assumes that burden.

Guards it jealously, in fact. He’s fought for it hard enough.

The police arrive to find the sewer tunnels littered with bleeding and beaten men, almost all alive. One killed by friendly fire.

Gordon is blinking, one eye swollen shut. By the time the police get there, he isn’t wearing a collar.  

“Batman?”

His voice is hoarse, as if his throat is raw. The ring of encrusted sweat, dirt and abraded skin is too obvious to miss.

The Batman stands implacably still at his right shoulder as the cavalry arrives.

The police insurgence brings an ambulance. Gordon’s good eye grows sharp at the sight of GPD blue. He straightens. Somewhat.

An EMT reaches for his elbow to help him to the ambulance. He shakes it off impatiently.

Batman simply gets into the tumbler and leaves.

When he’s back in the cave, he changes out of the suit. He stinks of sweat and leather and even beneath the tape and the gloves his hands are badly swollen.

But he’s made his point.

He was never intending to come back for Gotham, but he will come back to protect an old ally. And his reprisal will be merciless.

The sound of the bike rumbling towards the cave is loud, and he has ample time to consider his reaction. To pick and choose an appropriate one.

He chooses not to react.

“He’s in Gotham General. They called his ex-wife to let her know.”

He says nothing.

The anger behind his back is hot enough to scorch, but anger has never bothered him. Disgust, disappointment, rejection – those yes. But never anger, and not from John. John who took four months to achieve nothing.

He swallows against the rage and focuses on washing his hands.

Four months of torture.

“You can’t keep ignoring me like this. For fuck’s sake, say something!”

He takes his time to straighten up and turn around, fixes his eyes on John’s face and gives him the benefit of his full attention. The man wants it; he lets him have it.

“I didn’t leave it all to you so you could fail at it,” he starts.

The words are cruel in the circumstances, but he says them anyway. His tone is neutral, his face expressionless, but his gaze never wavers and he doesn’t stop. Lets the words and cool, dismissive judgement wash out of his mouth in a litany of blame.

John argues, because John is stubborn, but John reacts with anger, which doesn’t faze Bruce and doesn’t particularly impress him.

John’s hero goes crashing down into the dirt.

Bruce can see him topple as the fire dies out, and he continues to beat out the flames, makes sure that John knows exactly how little Bruce thinks of his efforts on this case. Admits airily that John has probably been successful in other ways but it doesn’t matter. Because what they do isn’t about petty thieves and desperate unfortunates, it’s about the big moments when everything’s on the line. It’s about being the miracle, the ace in the hole, the last line of defence.

“And you,” Bruce ends, “Are clearly out of your league.”

John leaves.

Suit and all.

Bruce watches him leave and turns around to wash the dust off his face.

Then he sinks down right there in the cave and eases the armour off his battered leg. The brace has only done so much to keep the weight off his knee.

He grits his teeth and leans his head back against the counter. Somewhere along the way, he sleeps.

He wakes up when John comes back. Feels the shadow loom over him. But he chooses to stay relaxed and breathe deeply.

John changes and leaves again. Which suits him fine.

When night returns he drags his aching body upright. His knee refuses to bend at first without white hot pain that brings spots to the corners of his vision, so he lets it drag on his slow way back to the tumbler.

He lifts it bodily into the tank with his hands, and works to bend it enough to sit.

This sign of weakness is alright in the safety of the cave. Once he’s outside, he walks on both legs.

There are police guards outside Gordon’s hospital room. The window is too difficult for the pain he’s in so he wastes precious time setting up distractions. He slips in as carefully as he can, calculating the odds of an ex-wife sleeping in the chair beside the bed.

He doesn’t remember one from the last time he visited Gordon in a hospital.

He does remember Gordon’s drugged insistence on getting the Batman back.

Gordon’s not asleep. One eye is still swollen shut, but even the softest click of the latch that Bruce can manage brings an instant and damning reaction.

Gordon shifts away from the door, pushes half upright, and he’s tense as a bow from the sound of the door opening.

Batman simply waits, arms down and cape draped around himself, waits while Gordon adjusts. He doesn’t pretend not to notice, but he leaves Gordon the dignity of pretending it’s perfectly natural.

It is in the circumstances.

But it shouldn’t be.

“Batman.” Gordon’s voice doesn’t sound much better than twenty four hours ago.

“Jim.”

“I hear I have you to thank for the daring rescue.”

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he returns.

Sincerely.

He is genuinely sorry it did. Is genuinely angry he didn’t realise sooner that the police are somehow less without Gordon’s leadership. That the FBI will never understand Gotham’s labyrinths. That John is not equal to the task he set him.

He doesn’t sit. And doesn’t walk. Gordon will notice, he thinks, and he doesn’t want him to.

To Gordon, right now, he is the hero. Unstoppable, unbeatable, always there when he’s needed.

“League of Shadows,” he rasps, “Lower order. The remains of Bane’s army. Your men should find enough evidence to hold them.”

“I’ll check in tomorrow,” Gordon says, and lies down.

“Will you charge them?”

Gordon’s eyes, slipping closed, blink open. “I’m not letting them walk free, if that’s what you mean.”

“With rape,” he says. Quick and clean, like a surgical incision.

Gordon goes still and white, and then relaxes.

Bruce feels it, the bone deep ache of forcing every muscle to unknot on command.

“No,” Gordon says.

He isn’t surprised.

“They could threaten to talk anyway.”

Gordon’s sudden curl of the lips is not a smile. It is gentle and mild and tired beyond belief. “Let them try,” he says, and his voice is ice, “They’re in my cells now.”

The words are brave. The intent is there. Then infection sets in, and nightmares; malnutrition and dehydration don’t help.

The Batman watches over Gordon from afar. Roofs of other buildings, mostly. Bugs in the hospital room connected to earpieces.

Two of the captured men escape the MCU holding cells, killing three cops, and Gordon wants to get up. He’s running a fever and the infection is only just at its peak. The nurse struggles to keep the man in bed and Gordon’s men come in to restrain their Commissioner.

He watches from afar, and listens while Gordon mumbles through nightmares. Listens while doctors sedate him and shake their heads.

It’s all too clear what’s happened, and with two violent perpetrators on the loose, Stephens thinks the hospital is the safest place for Jim Gordon.

The Batman catches the two escapees in the stairwell of the hospital. They’re League of Shadows, yes, but they’re only foot soldiers. He takes them apart from the inside out. Minds, bodies, spirit.

In his ear, through the earpiece, Gordon shifts and huffs a restless breath.

The guards at Gordon’s door flinch and reach for their guns when he walks towards them.

“Stairwell,” he rasps, “Two captives. I’ll watch the Commissioner.”

There is no bodyguard better.

They still hesitate.

Batman approves but says nothing. Lets them figure it out.

They move reluctantly. And he goes in on his own.

The fever’s broken. Gordon’s asleep.

There is still no concerned ex-wife in a chair by the bed. No child. No girlfriend. No lover.

He leaves the chair in the corner with the shadows, where he can see the door and the window and Jim’s face. Where he is out of the way but ever-present. And he sits down, stretching his bad leg out to protect it from the bone-grinding torment of shifting position.

Gordon doesn’t stir.

The Batman leans his head back against the wall, and lets his breathing even. He doesn’t sleep, but he rests.

When Montoya opens the door, he doesn’t twitch a muscle.

He presumes she thinks he’s asleep because she comes in, in spite of his presence, and she stands over him with her hands on her hips.

He watches her from between his lashes, eyes feigned closed.

Then he watches her move to the bed. She doesn’t touch Jim but she lingers fondly and then she leaves, smooth purposeful strides barely making a sound.

The guards are back too. He can see the shift of shadows in the thin strip of light under the door.

At some point in the night, Gordon stirs. Breath hitches. Groans. And then begs.

Batman doesn’t pretend not to notice. He listens, cowl tilted just slightly. But he doesn’t interfere until Gordon starts to curl and twitch.

He drops a heavy, gloved hand on Gordon’s shoulder, thin and sharp through the hospital gown, just skin stretched over bone.

“You’re safe,” he says, “Jim. You’re safe.”

Gordon doesn’t settle so much as wake up.

Lets out a choking gasp and pushes away.

Batman retreats.

“What are you doing here?” Gordon demands.

His voice is better. His words crack.

“We caught the two who escaped.”

Gordon’s brow furrows. “Who escaped?” he asks, breathing heavily.

The cowl tilts a little again, but the Batman is matter-of-fact and direct. “Two of your kidnappers escaped. We caught them trying to infiltrate the hospital. Your men have taken them back to your cells.”

“I should go see...”

But Gordon doesn’t move.

Batman doesn’t think he would stop him. They’re alike, the two of them. Driven. If Gordon wants to leave, his response will be to go with him.

As it stands, Gordon stays. So he stays.

“I have to leave soon,” he rasps, staring out of the window.

Gordon blinks. “I guess bats aren’t big on daylight.”

“Not the hospital,” he says, “Gotham.”

Gordon is all silence and tension, and then soft resignation. “This isn’t permanent, then.”

“No.”

“I didn’t thank you.”

Batman looks at him.

Gordon lets one corner of his mouth tilt up. They both know how that old exchange goes.

Light is seeping in over the horizon, enough to bring some clarity to the picture Jim makes curled on his side, unshaven, unhealthy, unwashed. Eyes unfocused, bare upper lip vulnerable. Hands loose and lax and pale even against the rumpled sheets.

And then Gordon frowns. “You look like hell.”

He doesn’t realise that he’s been waiting for that for four months, eight days and five hours until the words are out.

He leaves the hospital soon after.

Blake is in the cave when he drives in. The Red Robin suit has shifted on its stand so he assumes that it’s been used recently.

They say nothing to each other.

Bruce gets out of the tumbler and starts to strip. Robin continues to pour over a folder full of notes he has spread out over the surveillance console.

It’s only when he’s undressed and sprawled into the bedroll he keeps in the corner of the cave that John pipes up.

“Your knee’s busted.”

He contemplates the faint suggestion of far away craggy ceiling. His eyeballs hurt from lack of sleep, from days spent watching over a friend, the only friend left worth anything. His body is heavy and gravity yanks it down hard against the earth, even through the thin, neat folds of padding and blanket.

“You need me,” John says.

Bruce closes his eyes and breathes out, long and low and calm.

When he leaves eight hours later, he leaves in civilian clothes. His own clothes, last worn in Florence, Italy. Jeans, shirt, sweatshirt. Worn boots.

There are ways and means, especially in Gotham.

He finds scrubs. Finds a chart. Walks through crowds like he belongs, like he knows where he is and who he is, and has no notion in his head that someone might stop him.

He walks straight up to the uniforms, and it is a joke only he shares that makes him put on the glasses in his pocket.

The men are blurry, but he’s memorised the depth perception and it poses no obstacle not to walk into the door when he’s waved through.

Gordon isn’t there.

He doesn’t panic, but he does tense.

There is the sound of running water, however, so he lays the glasses on the bedside table, neatly beside the water glass, and he sits down. Stretches his aching knee out again.

Gordon is still pale and gaunt and small, still fragile, but he’s on his feet, and his glance at the figure beside his bed is shrewd. A moment of startled tension and then relaxation.

Better than the night.

Bruce merely smiles.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“I’m alive,” Gordon says drily, “You?”

“I’m awake.”

“You don’t have to babysit me.”

He does. He doesn’t trust any of the others. Not in the big moments.

Gordon’s room is busy. When the first of the visitors arrives, Bruce slips into the toilet, and spends two hours sitting on the bowl, listening intently to the sound of people coming and going, to the conversations filtering in.

When Blake’s voice sounds through the door, he looks up sharply.

“I wish we’d got you sooner, sir.”

He forces himself to stay still.

“I tried.”

“You did your best, son. It’s fine. It worked out in the end.”

There are parts of the conversation he doesn’t catch. There are parts he doesn’t listen to. When Blake leaves, he comes out.

Gordon looks tired.

Bruce watches Gordon watch the clock. “I’ll stay a month,” he says, “Then I leave.”

It’s not much. Gordon doesn’t thank him for it.

The anger doesn’t die. Merely falls into sullen embers. Every so often it crackles to flame. It rises to white hot fury the night he finds guns in the hands of a gang of street kids.

He gathers himself to put the fear of the night into them when a hand clamps on his shoulder and he’s spun.

He never heard John coming.

The fight is short lived. He has no intention of hurting John. John has no intention of fighting him.

“They’re mine,” Red Robin says, and that’s John voice under the black domino.

“What do you plan to do,” Batman rasps furiously, “Lecture them? Take their toys away? They’ll only find new ones.”

“So what’s the alternative? You going to kill them?”

“I don’t kill.”

“Great,” John says sarcastically, “Neither do I. And I’m telling you, back off. I’ll handle the kids.”

The Batman is furious, but he isn’t invested. So he steps aside. “I’ll watch.”

He watches until the last of the fight is over, watches while John does a competent job, nothing to set the world on fire, but he watches while John gathers up the weapons and walks, simply walks, away from the fight.

“They’re just kids,” Robin says.

“When they picked up those weapons, they stopped being kids. They’re threats now.”

“Watch out, Mr. Wayne,” John growls, “Your humanity’s slipping.”

A month. He’s given Gordon a month. A month of thinking of new and ingenuous ways to sneak into hospitals. A month of running through the sewers for small caches of weapons, armour, squats.

He intends to do what he can to make things safe before he leaves.

There are still prisoners missing from Blackgate. Stephens is running a task force to gather them up.

The Batman catches three, and leaves them bound and tagged outside the nearest precincts. He doesn’t go near the MCU building, though the light blazes every night.

The time he meets Gordon on the roof of the hospital, he’s dressed as a janitor.

Gordon’s pale and brittle, dressed to leave.

The nurse has been looking for him for twenty minutes.

Bruce, watching from the shadows, watches while Gordon takes the first drag and then the splutter as something goes wrong. He’s not sure what. But Gordon’s retching and spitting and coughing, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and his hands shake as he lifts the cigarette to stare at it.

And for a long while, that’s it. Gordon stares at the cigarette, and Bruce watches Gordon. The cigarette just burns down to ash and crumbles away in the breeze.

It’s not the time for him to make his presence felt, but then again, there’s no one else.

“Gordon,” he says pleasantly, and he’s close enough to the fire escape door that they can pretend he hasn’t been there the whole time.

They pretend a lot of things.

Gordon blinks rapidly, shoulders hunch defensively. But he looks around. “You’re back again,” he says noncommittally.

“I hear they’re letting you out.”

“Tell me you’re not here to drive me home.”

Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Dead men don’t have licences. I was thinking a cop car could be useful.”

“I can drive myself,” Gordon spits.

And the words grind with rage.

Bruce’s smile doesn’t vanish. Just grows hollow. “Suit yourself.”

Gordon does.

He gets a cab, and the cab is directed to take the Commissioner to his office in City Hall. Commissioner James Gordon, in jeans and a button down shirt, stalks into his office and startles his secretary into stammers.

Bruce goes back to the cave.

John isn’t there. John is never there in daylight.

Bruce finds the folder still open, paper scattered over the desk with the security monitors.

Red Robin’s hunting Zsaz.

Bruce snatches a few hours of sleep in his bedroll in the corner, and washes in the waterfall when he wakes up. The water sluices over his shoulders and the old scars and his knee locks beneath the cold spray.

He fits the brace back on as a matter of course.

John comes back when he’s still half-dressed, the brace showing itself for what it is. He slides on a shirt under John’s steady, burned out gaze.

He’s on his way out when he notices the messenger bag and cap slung over a peg in the wall.

He glances back over his shoulder.

Red Robin’s hunched over, fingers of both hands buried in his hair as he ticks over the notes in his file yet again.

But it’s no longer his concern, and never was in hindsight.

The light is on in Gordon’s little house. Almost every light is blazing, in fact. It spills out of the edges of curtains and slides under doors and around window seams and pools on the ground outside.

He has his balaclava in his pocket. He fingers it, assesses the pros and cons, and in the end he draws his hand away and keeps his own skin.

The television is on, volume loud.

Gordon looks half-wild.

Bruce frowns before he can catch himself. And it doesn’t need consideration to push his way in and push Gordon’s hand off the door handle. To close the door with a quiet click and look around, assess his surroundings.

The kitchen is neat enough, functional enough, drab and boring and utilitarian and it’s not right, he thinks viciously, in the privacy of his own head, even as he starts to open cupboards and drawers.

“What do you want,” Gordon says, “What are you looking for. Why are you here.”

He’s not really asking the questions, just mouthing off.

Bruce knows better than to let it escalate by silence. “Sit down,” he says shortly.

Gordon stands, fists clenching and unclenching.

Bruce flicks the kettle on as an afterthought, assembling mugs and spoons and coffee like a chemistry experiment.

He makes instant coffee strong and sweet and milky, and hands a mug off to Gordon with the arrogance of someone who knows it will be taken, and it will be drunk.

Gordon smashes the mug over the floor.

He doesn’t react. Sips his own coffee and leans his hip against the far counter.

It’s a tantrum, but it’s gone as soon as it arrives.

Gordon bends like an old man, slow and ungainly, and picks up bits of cheerful stripey pottery while Bruce leans against the counter and sips his coffee. Gordon wipes up spilled coffee and Bruce watches. Gordon drops into a chair at the table and Bruce puts his mug down on the counter in reach of his left hand.

Out in the living room, the television blares canned laughter.

“I can wear a mask,” Bruce says, “If that’s what you need.”

“I know it’s you.”

“If not me, then someone.”

Gordon doesn’t reply.

Bruce doesn’t expect him to.

The soft “I’m not coping” is so far beyond his expectations that it startles him.

Gordon lifts his head and his eyes are haunted. “I’m not,” he reiterates, “I know. But there’s no other way to deal with this. I’ll be fine when I’m back at work. That’s what I need.”

Bruce contemplates the thought. Understands it. They’re both the same.

“Clean up’s still going,” he says, “Stephens caught Wilchet.”

Gordon’s brow furrows. “Stephens caught Wilchet?”

“Well, Wilchet was tied up at the time,” Bruce allows, and the corner of his mouth twitches up.

Gordon shakes his head and pushes his glasses up his nose. Stands up and vanishes into the living room.

The sudden influx of silence when the television goes off is deafening.

It’s not right, Bruce thinks, but it’s what it is. Gordon wouldn’t cope any easier coming home to a wife and two children.

He looks around and spots the notepad on the counter by the back door. By the time Jim gets back, he’s sitting at the kitchen table, scrawling names in a list down the first page.

“What now?” Jim asks wearily.

“Work,” Batman says, and glances up, “Clean up’s still on.”

They work for two hours putting together a list of Gotham’s most wanted.

“You’d have been top of that list at one time,” Gordon says.

Bruce tilts his head, mildly curious. “Would you have arrested me?”

“Yes. But I always assumed you’d find a way to escape.”

They understand each other.

He gives it two hours of discussion on what is, as they both know, a very simple topic. The pleasure in discussion is nice, but ultimately pointless. Still, he waits it out. When midnight approaches, he leaves.

“Get some sleep,” he says.

“You too.”

“When the night is over,” he agrees.

This is the night he finds John in the cave, bleeding out through a wound in his side, weakly trying to staunch the blood and failing utterly.

Red Robin did go after Zsaz. He lost.

Blake loses frightening amounts of blood and Bruce seriously contemplates driving him to the hospital, but there is strength in the thin frame, and Blake slurs, “I’m fine. Just patch me up.”

“Hold still,” Bruce says, and cleans around the barely clotting wound.

He’s never been as neat as Alfred at first aid, and he forgets the topical anaesthetic. John almost bites through his lip at the first pull through of the thread.

Bruce pins John bodily with an arm across his torso. It’s not much, but between them they manage to hold John still long enough for the stitches to go in.

“Zsaz,” Bruce says, sitting back on his heels.

John is grey-faced. “Likes to knife people,” he whispers, “Kind of like this.” Twitches a hand weakly to indicate the sutures.

“I’ll handle it,” he says.

He expects stubbornness.

He doesn’t get it. And that starts to concern him.

Blake has a room in the orphanage, but the first two days after his showdown with Zsaz are spent on Bruce’s bedroll, sprawled out like a marionette with his strings cut. Bruce spends the first day at the monitors, looking through John’s file.

It’s meticulous. And it makes his lips tight. Zsaz had never been a legitimate target for John; he’d been a suicide mission.

The Batman makes an unscheduled stop at the top of the MCU building, where the old bat signal shines into the night sky every second day on average. He never answers; never sees the need to. But now he needs to.

“I need information on Zsaz,” he growls.

Montoya pulls the short straw and scratches her head. “We gave the file to the Red Robin.”

He studies her dispassionately.

“What?” she snaps, and throws her arms out, “We have no more information.”

She’s no more use to him so he leaves.

He gets to the cave in the hazy hours before dawn, and John is still asleep. He checks, and checks the wound while he can but there seems to be no sign of fever, no sign of infection.

He sits down in a chair and stretches his bad leg out, and then rubs his hands over his tired face. Every inch of him hurts, and he’s spread too thin. Minutes blend into hours and he’s been juggling so much over so long that it makes his head spin.

What he needs is sleep.

He closes his eyes and thinks of Florence. Thinks of Selina and the easy, lazy pace of doing nothing very much for as long as he likes.

It’s been nine years since he’s had a regular patrol, and nine years ago he was younger, fitter, angrier. His anger is all that’s sustaining him but the wires are tangling. His targets are... unworthy.

John isn’t fit for the role Bruce left him, and it was never John’s fault for being less than the Batman.

He staggers when he makes his way to the beat up car Blake drives. Gets in and simply sits for a few minutes while his leg protests and his muscles ache. Then he turns the key in the ignition and drives sedately away.

The MCU building is heavily guarded, as is fitting for people who chase the worst criminals in Gotham. But the building is also busy.

He parks a block away, picks up the satchel and messenger cap, and he buys a large white envelope from the store along the way. He bulks it out with the papers from the file and walks up to the MCU desk with nothing more than a bored drift of his eyes left and right.

“Delivery for Commissioner Gordon,” he drawls, head down to read the address.

The desk clerk examines it, opens it, catches sight of the GPD letterhead on the first sheet of paper inside, and calls up.

“Orders to deliver straight to the Commissioner,” he says.

“Buddy, you got orders to deliver to whoever’s got the time,” the desk clerk says, “But it’s your lucky day. The Commissioner’s in.”

A very nice young officer comes down to get him. He leers at her and she stares at him with a harsh, set look about the jaw until he backs off.

The game is all too easy. These cops aren’t even players.

He spends his time noting entrances, exits, corridors and floor numbers. He assesses faces, postures, snatches of conversation, and then there’s the bullpen. This is the only danger zone, when someone who is high up enough to pay attention might notice something out of place.

But the bullpen is strangely silent.

Almost every head turns up to scan him. With his cap on, chewing gum, looking bored and lanky and unshaven, he doesn’t seem to garner much recognition. But they still watch, until he realises they’re watching his approach to Gordon’s office.

Jim opens the door to bellow something, takes one look at him and startles, and Bruce is already cursing in his mind, eyes narrowing with a quick snap of his head that he turns into a neck roll.

“Package,” he says, “Commissioner Gordon?”

Gordon’s face goes blank. “That’s what it says on the door, son,” he says, and folds his arms, “What package?”

“From the 8th.”

Gordon watches him, and then jerks his head. “Come in. I’m not taking packages I don’t know anything about.”

“But I’ve got jobs, man.”

Gordon merely holds the door open.

He slides in, looking sullen.

Then Gordon shuts the door and stares at him, hands on his hips. “Are you out of your damn mind?” he hisses, “Showing up here at all is a stupid idea and you’re not even wearing a false moustache!”  

Bruce smiles a small, tight smile. “Chair,” he indicates.

It’s a question but he isn’t waiting for an answer. Lowers himself down into it and takes a deep breath.

“What’s wrong?” Gordon asks.

“Four floors,” he says obliquely, and then changes the subject. “I need intel on Victor Zsaz.”

He expects Gordon to be concerned. To feel guilty for his officers placing the entire burden of catching a certified lunatic with a murder fetish on the shoulders of someone who is clearly unsuited to the task.

What he doesn’t expect is Gordon’s fury.

It explodes like a rolling wave of fire and swamps him beneath it.

He’s tired, in pain, and he doesn’t even realise he has a crack in his armour until he crashes to the floor, the imprint of a thrown punch flaring red against his cheekbone.

It’s not the worst he’s had, but it winds him in more ways than the physical. He blinks, stares at Gordon, and doesn’t get up again.

But even his submission is not enough.

“You,” Gordon says, “This whole mess starts with you. Get out. Clean it up.”

His world ends.

Except that it doesn’t.

He feels like it should, and then wonders if he’s in shock. But he goes out there, walks through the bullpen scratching the back of his neck as he stares down at his watch, lips moving in a sullen mutter of annoyance. If the best cops in Gotham have noticed the bruising mark on his face, they say nothing.

This time, no one even looks up.

His hands shake when he gets into the car but they stop when he makes the effort. He drives carefully, gets to the cave, and he kneels painfully beside the man sprawled in his bedding. The wound is clean, and John wakes up when he shifts the wrapping enough to check the sutures.

John’s eyes slit open, hazy and unguarded, and then, “You got decked.”

He says nothing. Picks up the water he’s left on the ground beside Blake and helps him drink.

Blake huffs his thanks and shifts restlessly, pushing himself up on his elbows. “What time is it?” he yawns.

He’s missed work, he says, but doesn’t sound too upset about it. Bruce wordlessly gives the cap and bag back. John stares between the two, an odd look on his face.

“Do I want to know?”

“Gordon,” Bruce says.

And John accepts it as though the name makes all the sense he needs.

Bruce rolls the chair out from in front of the monitors, turns it around to face Blake, and then says, “What happened with Zsaz?”

He gets more out of Blake than anyone else. Blake’s eyes are burned out, fire gone, and his voice is toneless. He recounts details like they don’t affect him. And perhaps, Bruce thinks, they don’t. The painkillers from the medical kit are still circulating in John’s system.

Zsaz is no match for the Batman.

Gordon is on hand when the Batman calls in his capture but it’s Bullock who arrives at the scene with the squad cars.

Zsaz is spitting and struggling on the ground, eyes rolling madly in his skull. There are four fresh scores on his chest, dried blood smears not yet washed off.

Bullock stares down at him and then swears, pungently and creatively.

“He’s gagged the freak,” he says, “Bet even the Batman can’t take the sickness that comes out of that cesspool of a head.”

Things are going wrong.

It’s best, actually, to say that things are damaged. John, Jim, Gotham, and his leg takes a half hour at best every morning to bend at the knee.

The mass hysteria is dying down. Gotham adjusts quickly and for most people, the Batman is just another lunatic in a mask. They’ve had so many now.

He lets the spray from the waterfall sluice over his shoulders and hangs his head in exhaustion.

One month. Not long enough, but longer than he can manage. He has two weeks to go and John is down. His leg is agony. And Gordon...

Jim drinks.

Sort of.

He’s seen him, caught in the shadows outside the house, balanced on the railings while Jim pours whiskey into a glass and looks at it. Stares at it for hours. And then swallows it down before he goes to bed.

Quiet, unemotional movement.

He’s contemplated going in again, stepping into the light without a mask, but to do that means to risk everything. He’s never been sure of conversations as himself. Out of context, off the cuff. No script.

He rubs his hands over his face and wishes he had listened to Selina.

But to regret coming to Gotham is to regret saving Jim’s life.

He’s paid Jim’s ransom in sweat and grim determination because City Hall couldn’t afford the money and that’s fine. All he wanted to do was help. All he’s ever wanted to do, all he still wants to do. He’ll pay double if he needs to.

When he gets back to the cave, John is waiting for him, arms crossed.

“Come with me,” John says.

The bed is upstairs in the manor, in a room not being used by orphans. He’s not sure if it isn’t John’s own but he falls into it and sleep drags him down into unconsciousness.

Two days, John tells him later, he sleeps for two days. Wakes up long enough to drain the glass and bowl of cold soup by his bedside, and then crashes again.

He’s lethargic and stiff when he gets up, and his brain is cottonwool. When he limps downstairs, he finds John stretching, wincing as the stitches pull.

He watches, a sudden slam of anger vanishing as suddenly as it appears.

It’s never been John’s fault.

With his knee, he can’t rely on quick movement, so he focuses on showing John how to win with minimal movement and upper body strength.

“Balance and reflexes,” he says, and quirks his eyebrows when John mouths the words to himself.

The lesson doesn’t last long. He has no patience for teaching and John has no stamina for trial and error. They’re both injured, and running on empty.

“I’ve got to go upstairs,” John says, “Father Reilly will be eating the carpet by now. You need anything?”

Bruce eyes him.

“Right, you’ll handle it. I know. See you.”

John leaves him there in the cave.

He puts on the suit and goes out because Gordon’s right in a way – this is his mess to clean up. He brought the Joker out; he brought Talia and Bane to Gotham. He put John on the front lines. He chose Gordon for his crusade and put a target on his back.

There are some wounds worse than death.

Gordon waits on the steps outside his door, leaning against the rails with his arms crossed.

“I know you’re there,” Gordon says, and, “I’d like you to come in.”

There was never any choice, he realises, where Gordon is concerned.

“I’m sorry,” Gordon says, the words stiff.

The cowl dips slightly.

“You could take the mask off. I know who you are.”

He says nothing.

Gordon sighs and nods. “Yeah, I suppose not.”

The silence presses down on them, and between them. Gordon stands on the far side of the kitchen and it might as well be a world away.

It’s Gordon who straightens, eyes sharpening. “Zsaz is back in Blackgate. We found his four victims. The woman you saved is in the hospital; she had a heart condition and we’re not taking chances but she’ll be okay. She wanted to say thank you.”

“It’s appreciated,” he says.

“You’re taking gratitude these days?”

“I said it was appreciated, not required.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t,” he says, far more sharply than he intends.

“What I said – I wasn’t thinking straight. I lashed out at the wrong person. The one person in all of Gotham who doesn’t deserve it. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve said that.”

“It’s not enough. If you don’t let me thank you, it’s never going to be enough.”

“Partners don’t thank each other.”

Gordon barks a laugh. It’s not amused, nor is it kind. “Yes, they do. You’ve just never had a partner before.”

Gordon’s fingers tremble as they run over the cowl, reaching for the catches.

He doesn’t help, but he doesn’t hinder either. Just holds still.

The mask comes off with a drag at his neck and it’s thrown to the table with a resounding thud. Fingers comb through his hair and over his face and then hands angle his head down, forehead to forehead, as if somehow this intimate gesture is acceptable in the circumstances.

He doesn’t know how to respond. Doesn’t know what’s allowed.

But he brings his own hands to Gordon’s upper arms and holds on. Waits to see whether he needs to pull him closer or push him away.

“Why me?” Gordon asks.

“You were honest,” he replies, “And you cared. The others, they went after Chill. You paid attention to me.”

“Cops go after criminals. It’s what we do.”

“But you never forget the victims.”

Gordon sighs. “Anyone told you, you think too goddamn much?”

He has to laugh. “Alfred,” he says, and his voice cracks a little, “Used to say that when I was a kid.”

He can feel the warmth and the weight of standing so close to another body, but the Kevlar gets in the way. It’s for the best, he tells himself, and lets his fingers curl tighter around Jim’s biceps.

“You protect, Jim. That’s why I chose you.”

They peel apart gradually. Let go. It should be awkward, and it is a little, but it’s cathartic. Gordon doesn’t meet his eyes but hands him his mask. Turns his back while he puts it on.

When he turns back around, the Batman merely nods at him.

“You should talk to someone,” Batman says.

“It’s not something I want to talk about.”

“Then speak to me.”

“You think you can help?”

“No, but I can listen. You’ll help yourself.”

Gordon waves it away with an irritable hand. “I’ll be fine.”

There is nothing left to say that night.

John is there, for once, in the cave during daylight.

Bruce strips and changes, wolfing down food he’s stockpiled in a corner for morning.

“Get up,” he says abruptly, strapping his knee before adjusting the brace.

John looks up.

“If you’re going to survive, you’ll need some training.”

“Thanks, but no,” John says, “I’ll handle it.”

The words are thrown back in his face with no particular heat, but then John has never registered as a threat, and when it comes to practicalities, he is ruthless.

He tips the chair easily enough, and spills John out to the hard cave floor.

There is matting in one corner, where Alfred once thought training should happen in safe conditions.

He remembers the drop into icy water and the night spent by a fire. Hardly safer than the real swords that were swung at him.

He adjusts his stance casually on the bare rock and packed dirt and waits for John to get slowly to his feet.

“What is your problem?” John asks wearily.

“I didn’t leave you all of this to fail at it,” Bruce says, “Get up.”

“What the hell do you expect me to do? I’m not you. I don’t have your training.”

“It’s not about the training. It’s about the will to act.”

“Well, I don’t feel so much like acting right now.”

He sweeps John’s feet out from under him.

“You know the difference between us?” he asks, “When someone offered to teach me, I accepted.”

It’s not the most pleasant training session, nor does it last long. He’s tired, and John is still stiff, but halfway through the session something sparks in John’s eyes that makes his chest tighten. Makes him smile, vicious and swift.

“How’s the wound?” he asks, when they’re done.

“Fine.”

He sleeps for six hours straight when they’re done, and gets up to go back out into the night.

He ends up at Gordon’s house in the dark hours of early morning.

He slips in with a minimum of effort, and sits down carefully in a chair in the kitchen.

He used to have an image in the back of his mind, that if he ever found himself inside Gordon’s house it would be for a wound or for Gordon’s protection. This is neither, not really. He’s there because the only other place he can go is to the cave, and he is tired of the cave.

The cowl comes off easily, and the cape unhooks. The body armour looks ridiculous in the hazy light of dawn but he has nothing else.

He has more sense than to wander into the more private parts of Gordon’s house. He hasn’t been invited further than the kitchen, and in the circumstances, turning up in Gordon’s bedroom will probably get him shot.

Gordon finds him there in the morning and he drops his jacket in shock. Takes a step back.

Bruce holds still and waits.

“You’re sneaking into my house now?”

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” he replies.

It’s only when he’s said it, when the words are out of his mouth, that he realises he’s lying. It’s not that there’s nowhere else to go. It’s that he has nowhere more important to be.

There is nothing for him in Florence. Even less for him in the rest of the world.

He thinks of Selina but she barely registers before the thought of her slips away again.

There is one more reason he’s there. He reaches into a cartridge he’s had open for the last two hours and he takes out a strip of cloth in plastic, rolled and folded to fit. He places it on the table and pushes it carefully away.

“Physical evidence of what happened,” he says.

Gordon stares at the cloth, and sits down heavily. Stares at it the way he stared at his cigarette all those days ago on the roof of the hospital.

“I forgot,” he starts.

“That’s a lie, Jim.”

“Maybe. But I don’t have the time for the truth right now.”

They don’t; they know that, but seven days have turned into six and he’s running out of time.

Mouth thinning, twitch of facial muscle, and those eyes are sharp, no weak focus this time. “It’s more like I’ve managed not to think about it,” Gordon corrects quietly.

“And what’s going to happen when you start?”

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but I’m...”

The voice trails off.

“You’re what, Jim? Fine? Angry? Coping?”

“It’s not something I want to talk about.”

He lets the corner of his mouth twist. Up or down, he’s not sure what’s appropriate yet. “Partners don’t talk about this stuff?”

“How the hell do I know? Everybody’s different. You find a way that works. Doesn’t matter anyway; you’re leaving in a couple of days.”

“I’ll come back if I’m needed.”

“So the next time this happens, I can tell myself Batman’s coming? That’s great. Something to hold onto when I’m wearing a goddamn leash and chained to a bed.”

“There were people looking for you.”

“But we’re partners.” Gordon’s voice is far too quiet. Almost cheerful. “That’s what partners do, right? They look out for each other. Work together, watch each other’s backs. Maybe they talk. I don’t know. Usually they don’t vanish into thin air and pretend they’re dead.”

“Gordon.”

“Oh, now it’s Gordon? A second ago it was Jim. After this it’s probably going to be Commissioner.”

“That’s not how this works, Jim. It’s not.”

“No, no, you’re right. It’s not how this works. The next time I get taken for four months, I won’t even know if you’re alive to find me.”

“You can’t expect me to control that.”

“I’ve got to get to work. See yourself out.”

The door clicks shut and then there’s silence.

He stays, because the Batman can’t be seen in daylight. He has nothing with him but he finds a shirt that fits and a pair of sweats too long for Jim. He takes his time, picking things up and putting them down. Satisfies his curiosity thoroughly.

He intrudes into the rooms that are clearly kept for Gordon’s children. An odd mixture of childhood and teenagers, and there’s a touch of dust on the surfaces that makes his throat close. Neat, unmade, untouched beds and a few lonely items of clothing in the closets.

It reminds him of dust covers in the manor, of empty corridors and no staff and eating alone in a sitting room hastily adapted to accommodate one person.

Different houses but the same neglect.

It’s the only time he’s ever waited up late for someone else. The only time he’s sat by himself and watched time circle around the clock face.

When Gordon gets back, he’s still there.

It’s past midnight, and Bruce sits at the kitchen table, staring at an untouched glass of whiskey.

“I’m beginning to understand how this works,” he says, looking up.

Gordon reaches across the table and picks up the glass. He looks tired. The circles under his eyes are enormous, and he drains the glass in one quick swallow.

“You know what I think worries you,” Gordon sighs, “You think the worst thing they did was hurt me.”

He frowns in silent enquiry.

“Didn’t always hurt, you know. For kicks sometimes they made me like it.”

He feels his face going blank. Feels the shield come down.

Gordon sits down, splashes another measure into the glass and sips.

“If you’re so interested,” Gordon says, “Let me tell you how it went.”

There are some wounds worse than death, and this, this shreds into him like a drill bit. He’s had worse, but it’s only in comparison. He sits there and watches, in his mind’s eye, while Gordon paints skilful pictures in twists of phrase and cold police report language.

He absorbs it, because he can.

“It’s just biology. You understand how it works.”

“It’s a different thing to feel it.”

“I know,” he says, “And different when it’s done right.”’

“I don’t think that’s me, son.”

“I know,” he says again.

Because he does.

“Do you...?”

The question is awkward, the tone wary, and he’s not sure how to answer it. He doesn’t, except that he can.

“It’s been a while,” he says.

Gordon pushes the glass wordlessly across the table.

“I don’t drink.”

“Start.”

Gordon’s fingertips rest absent-mindedly on the battered Formica top, long and slender, and he doesn’t take the glass but he’s been out of a routine for too long. He’s lost contact with the ground, with reality.

And it would, he thinks, be entirely too easy.

“What frightens you about losing control?”

“It’s not about losing control.”

One hand lifts, fingers shifting under glasses and pressing into closed eyelids. “I’m getting too old for this.”

It is easy, he discovers.

The easy part is stretching his hand across the table, fingers gentle. The back of Jim’s hand twitches beneath the touch.

An aborted pull away, he suspects, but he holds still and holds Jim’s gaze and says nothing. Lets him adjust and realise, all by himself. Lets him see the truth.

“Trust me,” he says.

“This isn’t...”

“I’ll stop when you say. Just trust me.”

That seems to be all Gordon needs to hear.

He’s been in the bedroom searching callously for clothing. He’s pulled the corner of the sheets straight, set the alarm at right angles to the edge of the bed. He’s checked the locks on the windows.

It’s awkward. They’re uncertain and all too sane, but it’s his idea. So he shifts forward and tilts Gordon’s chin up, kisses him with determination more than desire.

It’s a start, at least.

Jim tastes of whiskey and cigarettes, and his lips are dry where Bruce slides his tongue over them.

Careful movements. Not carried away by passion.

If he wants this, he needs to take it.

And he does.

Shows Jim how to kiss him, where to touch him. Guides those capable, unresisting, sinful hands under his borrowed tshirt but it’s Gordon who strokes, curious and hesitant. Fingers both nipples and traces down the slight dip of his breastbone.

It’s Gordon who slides his hands around his flanks, over to his back, and down, down, to grip hard and pull.

He thinks he lets out a sound, but he’s not sure. Sanity is giving way to surreality and reason fell by the wayside in Florence, when he watched with the rest of the world while Gotham’s Hero Cop was beaten to a bloody pulp on video.

His hands curl around Gordon’s biceps and for one wild moment it’s too much and he digs his fingers in, prepares to let go, but then he’s already started this and he’s in too deep now to stop.

He doesn’t think he could stop now to save himself.

Shirts are easy. Pants are not.

Gordon freezes.

“It’s alright,” Bruce whispers, and noses delicately at the skin behind his ear, “Trust me.”

The bed is cold beneath his skin and he rolls, lets Jim take the top because Jim fights for it, and he has no intention of fighting back.

With Jim, he’s never had a choice.

He turns passive for as long as it suits him. Eyelashes flutter shut and his lips open and Gordon’s kisses are odd with stubble and filthy with desperation, and he’s so hard it hurts just to lie there and do nothing. Ask for nothing.

He could ask for everything.

“Whatever you want,” he offers.

Gordon sighs. “I don’t suppose you come with a manual?”

He huffs a laugh, soft and honest. “No.”

It’s easy in the dark. He just reaches out to touch.

There are scars on both of them. He’s used to his, but there are three old bullet wounds on Gordon. And he remembers the man in a hospital bed, small and fragile, surrounded by machines.

“If you call,” he whispers, “I’ll come.”

He can feel the shiver under his hands. Can feel the tightening and relaxing of muscle beneath skin. It plays across his fingertips like a siren call, like code.

Gordon’s knee on the bed between his legs is all that’s holding them apart, but Jim’s thigh is right there. So close.

He has to let himself go at some point, he realises, because one of them has to.

It’s not easy for him but he makes that decision. Coldly. Rationally. Once it’s made, he lets the thought go and lets his body drop. Lets gravity drag him down against the mattress and the sheets and he shifts, restlessly and wantonly, sliding himself over Jim’s thigh.

Pressure and heat and Jim’s staring at him a little incredulously so he turns his head, shuts his eyes and keeps going. Bares his throat without even realising he’s doing it.

Jim’s mouth on his neck is more stimulation that he’s expecting and he shudders, knows Jim can feel it. Bites down on the groan because he doesn’t want to startle Jim, doesn’t want to end this now. Teeth against the taunt cords of tendon make his eyes roll back in his head and his mind blanks out entirely.

He crooks his own knee belatedly, pushes his own thigh up between Jim’s legs and it’s a moment of fierce pride that he’s brought Jim down to his level. Jim’s hips roll when he continues to move, trying to please them both at once.

And then his bad knee grinds and he chokes on the sudden agony, curling instinctively towards the pain now that he’s off his guard.

“Bruce?”

The first time he’s heard his name in Jim’s voice and his ears are ringing, even as he thumps his head back against the mattress and curses, low and fluently and in another language.

“It’s not important,” he says.

They’re in the dark but his night vision holds and he can see the disbelieving shadow of the shake of Jim’s head.

“Where?” Jim asks.

“My knee.”

“The one against my dick?”

“Other one.”

Jim moves entirely too far away.

There’s fumbling and hands on his hips, his thighs, his shin. Jim’s fingers ghosting over the knee with no cartilage, so gently he barely feels it.

And then he’s being undressed.

He lifts himself up on his elbows and waits, heart hammering in his chest, minute shifts to help where he can.

Jim’s mouth against his knee is a sudden shock that goes straight to his balls.

“You’ve given too much,” Jim whispers, “I’m not asking for more.”

“You don’t have to ask. It’s offered. Accept it or not, it’s there.”

“Stupid self-sacrifice.”

It’s not perfect. They’re not perfect. He’s desperate and aching and Jim backs off three times before he’s coaxed back. By the time it’s over, when Jim’s boneless and half asleep, he gets up.

He has no expectations.

And dawn will be breaking soon. The Batman cannot be seen in daylight.

Gordon doesn’t stop him.

The last of the night air is humid and sticky. The suit is too heavy. He’s not sure if he’s made things worse or better, or just more complicated.

He’s too tired to argue.

John isn’t in the cave and the Red Robin suit hasn’t moved.

His pile of blankets and thin padding is empty and cold and reeks of deprivation and he has a wild moment of wanting to go back, as himself, to climb into a real bed with someone else, someone warm, and pretend that they can make an empty house feel like a home. That maybe crimes and criminals can be reasonable conversation, and injuries can be normal. Maybe there is a partner out there for a man who’s spent his entire life working alone.

This, he thinks, is what frightens him about losing control.

He curls himself in the sheets and dozes. Wakes up with a start to find himself dreaming the sense memory of Jim’s teeth on the stretched tendons in his neck, and his own hand wrapped around his hardening cock.

He’s exhausted and getting erections like a teenager but he closes his eyes and blanks his mind and lets himself go.

Just for a while.

Five days head inexorably towards an end.

John comes in with the afternoon.

He’s waiting, tinkering with the weaponry John’s been trying unskilfully to adapt.

Gestures to a clear space of hard rock floor and John nods, settles on his feet the way Bruce realises with a start is how he’s taught him.

The training session is swift and unlovely and John knows his knee hampers his movement so he makes him move, keeps up the attack, and he approves, but John doesn’t see the ledge until he’s stepped over it and fallen into the water.

It’s a hard fall, and John lands awkwardly.

He calls a halt when John doesn’t get up immediately.

“Watch your surroundings,” he says.

“You’re leaving soon,” John returns.

He looks at John.

“Gordon told me.”

He flushes hot and cold but holds himself still. “Five days,” he agrees, “My month is up.”

John sits there, still waist deep in the water, bruised and burned out and something flickers in his eyes, but it’s not the will to act, it’s a plea. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I’m retired.”

“You came back.”

“For Gordon.” He says it simply, openly. It is what it is.

“What about Gotham?”

“You’ll learn.”

“It’s going to get me killed. I’m not a billionaire with my own R & D department. I don’t have the time or money to spend on this, even if I knew what I was doing.” John waves vaguely at the cave around them.

He sits down in the chair by the monitors, and stretches out his bad leg.

“Talk to Lucius Fox.”

“I have. He helps but he can’t do everything. And he’s still running Wayne Industries. He’s busy. He wants to see you, by the way.”

“It’s not safe.”

“You walked into the MCU bullpen and you think meeting Fox isn’t safe?”

“Different motives, different levels of risk.”

“Bullshit.”

“John.”

“It’s fine,” John says, and gets out of the water at a slow stretch, “It’s fine. Run away again and we’ll handle it. Fuck knows we’ve always made do.”

The words are fire, this time. They scorch with disgust, disappointment and rejection. Worse than anger. More effective that anything else.

He buries his head in his hands and he wants to see Lucius. Wants to see Alfred, who’s no doubt heard by now of the Batman’s return but Alfred’s staying away. He doesn’t know why but he suspects it’s because Alfred’s never wanted him to come back. Not to this.

And he was never intending to come back. But he did, for Jim.

Leaving for the third time is almost too hard.

He thinks of Selina but she slips away, oddly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

In the end, there is only one place he can go.

He waits at the door, this time. Knocks and waits. When Gordon opens it, he pushes in and snatches at what comfort he can get. Some way to drown out his thoughts and stop his mind.

Gordon freezes beneath the kiss.

He stops because there is no reciprocation.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and tilts his brow down against Jim’s, breathing in the smell and sound and the feel of warmth against him, pressed up to him with no Kevlar in the way.

“Son,” Gordon says gently, “This isn’t such a good idea.”

“I have a name.”

“That’s a name on a tombstone. The other is a name I’m not supposed to say, not in a situation like this.”

“Why not? Is it impossible to understand him? What he does?”

Gordon doesn’t answer.

He lets go. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“If I could, I would. I’m sorry too.”

He looks around the drab, empty, utilitarian kitchen but there’s something different. There’s a bag on one counter. A woman’s handbag.

He doesn’t know if he makes a sound but Gordon turns swiftly to follow his line of sight and then sags.

“Babs. My daughter,” he says, “She’s out at the moment with friends. Came in this morning.”

He blinks.

“That’s not what I meant,” Gordon says, not looking at him, “Even if she wasn’t here, I’d still have to think about it. Last night was... it’s not what I’m used to. In the circumstances I don’t know if it’s such a good idea.”

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

And then Gordon turns around. “She’s only here for a couple of days,” he says hesitantly.

“The month is almost over.”

Gordon’s jaw tightens and his eyes blaze and he actually flinches in the face of such obvious rage. Disappointment. Hurt. And then it falls as suddenly as it rises.

“I see.”

“Jim.”

“I should have expected it. You told me at the start.”

“I did.”

“It’s fine,” Jim says, “I suppose we’ve already said everything that needs to be said on the subject.”

“If you ever need me, I’ll come back.”

He’s almost at the door when Jim says, “What if I need you to stay? Not leave at all?”

He halts instantly, hand on the door handle.

“Gotham needs help. John needs help. And I need a partner. You don’t have to do what you did last time; no one’s expecting that. But I need the Batman. We need the Batman. He has to stay.”

“Bruce Wayne is dead. I can’t live in a cave for the rest of my life, only coming out at night. You can’t ask me for that.”

“Bruce Wayne’s come back from the dead before. And Bane did go after him. He’s a coward; of course he’ll run. But his money is here. His family name is here. He can come back.”

“This is my only chance to have a normal life.”

“How normal? No roots, no friends. No purpose.”

“Jim.”

“You offered more. I’m only accepting.”

“You can’t ask for this!”

“You offered.”

His fists clench and unclench by his side.

“Bruce, you knew what you were offering last night. I’m not stupid. Didn’t want to ask but you’ve made it my place to ask. I’m betting John’s already tried, which is why you’re here at all.”

He flinches.

“Watch it, son, your control is slipping.”

He snarls, and grabs fistfuls of Jim’s shirt.

It’s Jim’s fault, he thinks distantly, that he’s lost all control.

This time the kiss is returned, but Jim isn’t sure. He can feel it, feel the ebb and flow of want and fear and uncertainty, and it fuels the fire in his blood to boiling point.

“If I stay,” he growls, “That’s my price. I came for you, and I get to keep you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Price too high, Commissioner? Can’t pay it?”

“No price,” Gordon says quietly, “Is too high for Gotham.”

And Bruce kisses him again.

It doesn’t go anywhere, not that night. Not when they’re both raw and aching. When they don’t know how it’s going to work.

Jim’s mouth is swollen and his bare upper lip is still oddly vulnerable. Bruce kisses it, the skin with its hint of evening stubble soft and pliant.

“Babs will be home soon,” Jim says, eyeing the clock.

He vanishes into the night because it’s easier than staying, than talking this out.

He was never intending to come back to Gotham. When he came back he was never intending to stay. He’s still not completely sure but if there’s ever going to be a reason, it lives in the house he’s leaving.


End file.
